According to a research performed by the National Osteoporosis Foundation of USA, spinal compression fracture is the most common complication induced by osteoporosis. At Year 2009, there are about forty-four million people suffered from osteoporosis in U.S.A., and that amount will increase dramatically to sixty-one million at Year 2020. Moreover, there are about one and a half million bone fracture instances that are directly caused by osteoporosis in U.S.A only at Year 2009, and among which seven hundred thousands of that are compression fracture. There are similar conditions happening in Taiwan. In a recent research focused upon the population over the age of 65, there are about five hundred thousands people suffered from osteoporosis which makes the osteoporosis the cause of the second popular chronic disease in Taiwan, and in addition, there are nearly sixty thousands cases of compression fracture are caused directly from osteoporosis.
The common methods for treating osteoporosis include nerve decompression surgery and vertebral fusion surgery of heterogous/autologous bone transplantation. However, such common surgical methods are disadvantageous in that: longer operation time, larger wound incision and longer healing period. Among those common surgical methods, the procedure of autologous bone transplantation is most effective, but it requires one additional wound incision for harvesting a health bone from the patient. On the other hand, for the heterogous bone transplantation, the problems of complication, such as bone graft resorption and infection, can be serious.
In recent years, with the rapid improvement in micro-invasive surgical technique and instrument, there are more and more micro-invasive surgical procedures being developed for treating painful spinal compression fractures, whereas one of the exemplary micro-invasive surgical procedures is the vertebroplasty procedure. Since the pain induced from a spinal compression fracture is generally resulting from the instability and motion of fractured vertebrae, such pain can be relieved when the fractured vertebrae is stabilized by filling the cracks in the fractured vertebrae and enhancing the vertebral strength. In a vertebroplasty the filling of bone cement is performed under the assistance of X-ray imaging, and after the bone cement is cured, the fractured vertebrae can be fixed motionlessly and correctly so that the stability and compression resistance of vertebral body are increased. Moreover, since the vertebroplasty procedure is considered a minimally invasive surgical procedure that can be done through a small puncture in the patient's skin as opposed to an open incision and with less recovery time, most patients receiving the procedure generally experience significant pain relief of more than 80% that allows the patients to return to their normal activity shortly after the procedure.